Low voting percentages in Urban areas

With the general elections in India crossing the half way mark and with 2 more phases to go, it has been yet another election when the voting percentages across the urban areas in the country going down constantly. The percentage of voting in major cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad has gone down considerably in 2009 when compared to the figures in 2004. It is very sad to learn that despite Mumbai being the business capital of the country, the voting percentage to somewhere around 45%.

Is this a result of the educated, affluent class of people losing faith in the democratic process itself ? Or is this because the salaried class feels that there has been no change in their day to day problems irrespective of their elected representatives ? Whatever might be the reason for this reduction in voting percentages, the reality is that the elected representatives would be crowned as MPs on the basis of a simple arthimetical calculation, but they are not necessarily the true representative....

There is a danger of the voting percentages go down even further in the years to come. I believe the next Govt should take some steps to identify the reasons for people not coming out to vote and take measures to improve the same.

PS - I did cast my vote along with my spouse.

2 thrilling matches on 01-May-2009

a. Mumbai Vs Kolkata at East London

This match was billed as the clash of the legends of Indian Cricket, Sachin Vs Sourav. Mumbai batted first to put up a fighting total of 148 runs thanks to the brilliance of one of the costliest recruits in IPL, JP Duminy who scored an unbeaten 52 runs and a quick-fire 34 runs from the master blaster himself.

Kolkata started their run chase miserably losing "DADA" Ganguly for a first ball duck wherein he was clean bowled by Zaheer Khan. Soon after Zaheer removed Gayle in the same fashion. Hodge later consolidated the run chase and got them so near but yet they were not able to overhaul the Mumbai score. It was also the miserly bowling by the talented Malinga which put an end to Kolkata's hopes resulting in their 5th consecutive loss. Mumbai won the match by 9 runs in the end.

b. Bangalore vs Punjab at Durban

Bangalore had a new captain in "Jumbo" Kumble after KP left for England for the Windies tour. Batting first they struggled to put up a total of 145 runs. The new recruit for Punjab, Abdulla was on song yet again taking 4 wkts and reaching the top of the bowlers table to fetch the coveted PINK cap. This was after Yuvraj getting a hat-trick at his favourite ground (the same ground where he hit Stuart Broad for 6 sixes in the 2007 T20 world cup).

Yuvraj came in as an opener for Punjab and continued the good form to score 50 runs in just 34 balls before falling to Kumble. Bangalore soon picked some more wkts to increase the pressure on the Punjab team. Sangakkara and Jayawardene joined together to take them towards the victory. As the required run rate starting climbing up, Jaya and Sanga, both of them got out in quick succession leaving 17 runs to get in the last 2 overs. Kumble displayed all his experience in bowling a tight 19th over giving away just 4 runs. The young Praveen Kumar proved his mettle by picking up 2 wkts as well as bowling a tight line thereby denying a victory for Punjab.

This victory helped Bangalore to stay alive in the tournament and moved up to the 5th spot in the points table.